Opening | Dearly Beloved

About the event

Join us for the opening of Dearly Beloved | 100 Years of the Wedding Dress!

This exhibition features a selection of bridal wear from our collection, representing wedding fashion from the late 1800s and through the twentieth century. Discover the beauty and craftswomanship of home- or dressmaker-made garments, embellished by hand. With a focus on the wearers of these dresses and Aotearoa wedding traditions, we see how the wedding dress reflects changes in fashion – both in aesthetic style and our social customs.

Displayed across two exhibition spaces, Dearly Beloved also presents the Ashburton Bride of the Year 1970 winner’s gown – an unusual, though at the time, very contemporary wedding dress – alongside related objects and photographs from the Gordon Binsted negatives collection.

All are welcome at the opening event on Saturday 13 December at 6pm. This event will coincide with the opening of exhibitions by artists Kathy Reilly, Inge and Marc Doesburg, and the Print Council of Aotearoa.

Left image: Photograph, wedding of Claire and Robert McLeod in 1946. AM&HS Collection; 07.2025.0039.4

Right image: Photograph, wedding of Mavis and Gordon (Jock) Burgess on 8 December 1945. AM&HS Collection; 06.2017.1336